


Every Man Is A Quotation

by misha_anon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Gen, No Sex, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1613207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misha_anon/pseuds/misha_anon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Free Will dinner.  <i>Spoilers for 9x22, Stairway To Heaven.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Man Is A Quotation

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically self-indulgent tripe and I apologize for that. I just needed it out of my head. <3
> 
> Title borrowed from Ralph Waldo Emerson's _Prose and Poetry_. The full quote is as follows:
> 
> “Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. ”
> 
>  
> 
> Last spoiler warning. :-)

Dean sets a plate in front of Sam and one in front of Castiel before returning to the kitchen for his own.  The boys have already tucked into their burgers when Dean makes it back to the table with his own food.  They're smiling; he notices but he doesn't smile back.  Instead, he takes a seat opposite his brother and brother-in-arms; the plate set almost gently on the table before him.

This is the only time the three are ever in the same place, when there's food on the table.  Dean still cooks every night like clockwork, still feels the urge to provide for his brother even when they're clinging to the edge of civility.  Castiel either doesn't notice or doesn't comment on the icy silences between Sam and Dean.  He talks in that way he has, a sort of running commentary on humanity as he discovers it.  If Dean were thinking straight, he'd smile at the fact that Cas is somehow _still_ discovering humanity.

Instead, he stares at his plate.  His fingers form triangles on either side of the red circle as he looks at the burger placed squarely in the center.  His index finger begins to tap as Sam and Castiel slip out of focus, lost in their own conversation.  It's the same rhythm every time, he doesn't know it, but it somehow feels right.

_Primal_.

Like a drumbeat around a campfire in the desert at midnight while cooking a wild animal, right.  Dean stares as the food blends into the plate in a sea of red, the rhythm that pounds at the base of his skull intensifying with the electric edge that skitters across his skin.  He takes a quick breath, itches in the middle of his spine, vaguely notices that Castiel and Sam's conversation has grown hushed - or stopped.

The red of the plate goes liquid at the edge of his vision, the faces of ancestors he never knew looming large in front of his face.  Dean's bones ache; his jaw clenched against words as each of them cries out in turn.  He doesn't understand the words; he never has.  They're in foreign tongues, long since dead, but he doesn't have to understand the screams to know what they're saying.

A thousand voices, shouting through the ages as one, " _Kill_."

Dean's fingers twist against the edge of the plate, clenching as he holds onto the kernel of reality that's blurred to the edges of his periphery.  He clings, breathes, simmers in his thirst for righteous justice, just the way his ancestors have.

Just the way _Cain_ did.  The simple thought of his Biblical lineage and what he sacrificed sends a fiery itch through Dean's forearm, a blinding pain that takes his breath away and drives him to shove the plate away in horror. 

_"Dean!"_

He's not certain whether the voice he hears is Sam's or Castiel's, but it doesn't matter.  Both men are on their feet, staring at him with concern-drawn faces when his vision finally clears.  He stares at Castiel until his face comes into focus, blinks slowly and stares at Sam.  This is real, Dean reminds himself.  Sam is real; Cas is real.  _This_ is real.

"Are you.. " Sam starts, already withdrawing behind the wall of hurt and anger that separates them so firmly.

"Are you all right?" Castiel finishes when Sam's voice falters.  He sits back down, watching Dean the whole time.  Sam remains standing; his posture guarded as he holds Dean's gaze.

"Yeah," Dean answers, a little too late and a little too hoarse.  "Yeah, I was just thinking."

Castiel's eyes narrow, but he says nothing; Sam returns to his chair but, he pushes his plate away.  The three sit in heavy silence, their eyes finding middle ground on the table between them so they don't have to look at one another anymore.  Dean rolls his shoulders and takes a deep breath.

"Gonna go clean up," Dean says, trying to pretend as though nothing just happened.  "Got a ton of stuff to do tonight."

He stands up and reaches for his plate.  Castiel's fingers close gently around his wrist and he stops to look down into the angel's eyes.  He smiles, stiff, forced, but Cas seems to take it as confirmation that he's okay.  He squeezes Dean's wrist; a gesture almost certainly meant to be reassuring.  Instead, it makes Dean feel caged, caught, exposed.  He grimaces in approximation of a smile until Cas lets go before he grabs his plate and walks away.

In the kitchen, he drops it in the sink and leans back against the wall, his legs unsteady and his heart heavy.  He hates lying to Sam and Cas; but if they knew the truth they'd do.. something.  Or, they'd try.  They can't know; not until it's over.  As Dean slides down the wall to sit on the floor, he manages to convince himself that whatever is going on - whatever is changing within him - is nothing they can't fix when it's over.

They _always_ fix their messes after all, right?


End file.
